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Streams of bubble result (best in an outdoor environment)

(Please not that this is a review for a slightly different product than is shown under the review title: I was advised by dooyoo to submit it under this existing heading as presumably the Tesco own-brand version I wanted to review is considered to be effectively the same toy as the 'yellow moon' one.)

The large own-brand bubble-wand from Tesco comes as a foot-and-a-half long, cylindrical translucent plastic tube, available in a range of jolly, bright colours, with a screw-in handle incorporating a long, flexible bubble-wand made of ribbed plastic. From Tesco, the tube is sold 'as is' - with only a little price tag at the handle end and no extra packaging . It contains maybe 150ml of bright green (un-fragranced) bubble-fluid - which has a slightly more viscous consistency than general soap-and-water, suggesting that some sort of thickening agent (a seaweed-derived alginate, perhaps) has been added to the mix.

The flexible wand part is attached to the screw top, which provides a useful handle that stops you getting bubble-mix all over your hands. The wand is made of slightly ribbed plastic - the grooves being there to create mini-reservoirs for the soapy solution. It is slightly over a foot long but less than an inch wide; despite this counter-intuitively elongated shape, round bubbles still result (naturally) when the wand is waved through the air; this is definitely a wand for wafting gently about over your head, rather than blowing through, as it's effectively impossible to blow (using your mouth and lung-power) through enough of the (foot long) bubble-making space to generate a bubble. Given the size of the wand, and the abundance of bubbles that result from each wafting of it, this is definitely a toy for playing with outdoors, in the garden. I would say that a single 'loading' of the wand would be generally sufficient to generate - oh, maybe about three 'larger' bubbles (with perhaps a five inch diameter), between six and ten medium bubbles (three to four inches in diameter) and the same number of small bubbles (one or two inches across). All this means of course that you get through the bubble mix astonishingly quickly; you can seen the volume in the tube decreasing as you go. I would say a single bubble tube would generally be good for about four or five separate playings with: kids do love the streams of bubbles produced however and they are great fun.

These bubble making sets cost £2 from Tesco each and, lamentably are designed for a single use - which means that quite a bit of plastic waste is generated from each unit. You can try refilling them with washing up liquid solution, but it doesn't work nearly so well as the solution the tubes come pre-filled with; I think the large size of the wand isn't really compatible with home-made soapy water bubble mix. I see that soap solutions designed for use with bubble-machines can be purchased (eg. from amazon.co.uk) these days, and I suspect that this type of bespoke soapy water might be good for refilling a bubble wand with. The downside is that this refill liquid stuff doesn't come cheap - £8 per litre, which come to think of it, might work out cheaper than buying a lot of new Tesco bubble wands, given that these days we're getting through slightly over one a week.

Incidentally, I've seen similar giant bubble wand products e.g. on amazon.co.uk selling at approximately a quid each, and you're going to be buying a lot of them (in bulk, so you free P&P) it might be an idea getting them from there.

Aside from the issue of generating waste plastics, the only other slight downside to these wands I can think of is that when you start to run low on bubble solution, it becomes increasingly difficult to 'reload' the wand. Of course the flexibility helps in this respect, but you never do manage to get the last dregs out and used, quite.

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perfect, what child dosnt like giant bubbles?

When i first went to Cardiff to look around at the university, a couple of years back now, i went and had a look at the castle (a visit i would recommend) i got one of these as a fun novelty gift in the gift shop at the end, i was looking around with a couple of friends and i didn't really have a reason for buying this, it was £3 and just seemed the thing to do at the time. It didn't occur to me until the train ride home that my little sister would probably love this. So when i got home i took it out to show her, she looked a little confused at first, and couldn't quiet get the hang of it, but she loved watching other people swing it around, and loved to run around and pop all the bubbles.

This product works best to swing it rather than to attempt to blow the bubbles out, you'll get much less dizzy this way! Doesn't take too much force and after a while of watching it done, my little sister was swinging like crazy and making very large bubbles all over the place. You want to make sure your child does not try to do this indoors for 2 reasons - The first is that the swinging is bound to knock something over, and the second is that lots of very large bubbles= lots of big wet patches on the floor. The child's clothes will probably also get wet while playing with this, but what fun outdoor toys dont cause a little mess?

This product is hours of fun for a child, every child loves bubbles, and these bubbles in particular because of the extra novelty of swinging a sword around, not to mention the bubbles being so big! this can be picked up online and in pretty much any toyshop for around £2, and is well worth it. These is also the fact that it can be refilled simply by mixing washing up liquid and water, so the fun never needs to stop! The only downside to this refill seemed to be that when the bubbles popped you had to be very careful they weren't near the eye, as this hurt more than the original mixture.....so in attempt at a solution of this, be filled it with no more tears shampoo and water instead......perfect! who would have thought £2 could buy so many hours of entertainment!

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An excellent way to create oversized bubbles without the need to blow your lungs out!

While browsing in Poundland some time last year I saw they were selling these Yellow Moon Bubble Swords and having a three year old who is obsessed with bubble-blowing I decided to pick a couple up. This turned out to be an excellent price actually as the following day I was in Toys R Us and saw the exact same thing on sale in there for £3.50, which I wouldn't have paid for what is essentially a throw-away toy such as this.

So, what on earth is a Bubble Sword? Well, it's a very simple idea actually. It's basically an oversized bubble blower (only you don't blow) shaped like a sword. They are available in silver and gold, we have one of each although for some reason Hollie seems to prefer playing with the silver one.

The handle of the sword twists off and once you pull it out you will see the large opening through which you will blow your bubbles. The 'blade' of the sword holds the bubble mixture and it's a very simple process to dip the handle in and out of the solution to get as much as you need for what will turn out to be a myriad of bubbles. The sword comes already filled with the bubble mixture, but this obviously won't last forever (or even for a few minutes in this house!) so you'll eventually need to make some of your own up using washing up liquid and water. I find a generous squirt of Fairy gently blended through cold water is perfect, the key is not to shake the mixture as you'll only have to deal with an impatient child while they wait for it to settle again.

The bubble wand is excellent, attached to the sword handle it allows even the youngest child to swing it around outside so that the breeze causes the bubbles to be created. You'll either find you get a few huge bubbles or lots of smaller ones, there's no way to deliberately set out to create certain sized bubbles so it must be something to do with the solution and wind strength as to whether you end up with whoppers or tiddlers.

The sword is the biggest bubble blower I've ever seen, from tip to tip it measures just under half a metre and the wand itself looks huge in Hollies little hands. As I mentioned earlier, the wand is too big for even an adult to actually blow the bubbles, but even very young children will soon work out the best way to hold it in order for the get the very best bubbles from the wind available.

The toy is made entirely of very soft plastic which has actually proved to be much more durable than I originally thought. It's been thrown, stood on and left underneath a blanket of snow for weeks but both swords still look the same as they did when I bought them. One of the wands has warped slightly, but this is due to heavy-handed Hollie more than the quality of the product. Due to the material used to make the wand it will still squeeze back into the body of the sword with no problems and it hasn't affected the quality of bubbles produced.

Overall I am more than happy with my purchase of these cut-price bubble wands. They keep Hollie entertained in the garden and are vastly superior to the smaller bottles of bubble mixture, which are often used and discarded within an hour of giving them to your grasping child. The recommended age for the Yellow Moon sword is 36 months, I suspect this is mainly due to the fact that you don't want your children to drink the mixture as there is absolutely nothing on the soft sword to hurt a younger child.

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THANKS NAN. XX BRILL TOY.

My nan finds it virtually impossible to not buy something for my children every time she leaves the house. Each and every time my children see her, they are greeted with something or another. The other day, when it was really warm and sunny. My nanna visited and excitedly stated that she had something really magical for my son.

She had seen a man demonstrating this giant bubble sword in the middle of town, and was blown away by the huge bubbles this sword can make with just a flick of the wrist. The plastic sword has a screw top, which is situated just below the sword handle. When unscrewed the handle pulls away to reveal a large sword within the handle. The bottom of the sword is cut away. When this is dipped into the solution which is stored in the handle, It creates huge bubbles.

My son was much more intrested in the actual sword at first. He wasn't particularly bothered about taking his new sword apart to blow bubbles. He would not let us show him the bubble making powers of his sword, insisting that we would break it. However with a lot of persuading, he finally relented. I think it was my nan putting him in a headlock that done it!!

When we demonstrated the bubble making ability of this sword my son suddenly became very excited and wanted a go. He found it fairly easy to get the knack of making these large bubbles. Infact he was much more able than me. Even my daughter who has no intrest in such toys now, became curious to have a turn.

This sword is so much fun. He loves the fact that it is a sword that turns into a bubble maker. I think he enjoys the mystery, as the sword is hidden inside so no one will know it's a bubble maker unless you tell them. Not only is the bubble aspect of this toy effective, but the sword is also well designed and with it's gold plastic, looks very cool and authentic.

My son was quite upset when the bubble mixture was all used. But I refilled with water and fairy liquid. I have to say the bubbles are not as impressive as before, but it does work and my boy is still happy.

My nan explained that she only paid around £3 for this sword, which I believe to be of excellent value. I can't believe that my son has had such pleasure and amusement from such a bargain toy. I would certainly recommend the purchase of one of these swords. They are brilliant fun and a simply fantastic boys toy!!

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lots of fun

My son had a birthday party recently and I saw these a few days before and thought that it would be great to just pick up a few for the kids to play with if I needed a break from party games!

They are a great big bubble stick in the shape of a sword. The case is gold or silver and has etchings on it to make it look more realistic. The handle is nice and chunky and it is made of plastic. The wand is lifted from inside the casing and it is 48 cm long- much bigger than normal bubble sticks.

The bubble mixture is contained inside the casing and they are very simple to use. Simply dip the wand into the mixture and lift out. Then wave slowly in the air to create the bubbles. You can wave the stick at any speed you like but we found that waving it slowly created the best bubbles, they were a lot longer and thicker. Waving the wand quickly created small bubbles.

The boys at the party all had great fun with these- it got very competitive towards the end! The age range for these is 3 years and up, I suppose that is because of the bubble mixture. When the mixtures ran out |I just used washing up liquid and diluted it with water which worked fine.

The only problem with the sword sticks was that some of them leaked a little. At first I thought that the boys just weren't closing them properly but after I had checked I realised that they were leaking slightly from the top. However, they were only cheap and for the amount of fun the boys had with them they were well worth it!

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A great item

Giant Bubble Sword.....

The Giant Bubble Sword is exactly what it sounds like. It is a large, 48 cm in length silver (or gold) coloured plastic sword. Inside the sword is a bubble mixture that when the bubble wand is attached this will create the biggest bubbles I have ever seen.

We purchased the bubble sword in Poundland for £1 and this is a very good price as it is more like £3 from most places on line. I haven't seen this type of bubble wand before as the more popular ones are just long wand types rather than this impressive looking sword.

Jack is really into castles and knight as well as everything else but when I saw this I knew he would love it for the fact that it looked like a real sword and then love it even more because of the fact it had bubble mixture inside!

There was only the silver colour one in Poundland when I purchased this one a few months back and for a while they stopped doing them in store but I was in their yesterday and saw them again.

The Bubble Swords do not come all in one piece however and the bubble mixture is kept inside the main sword body and a screw cap which doubles as the handle is in place. The wand part of the sword which creates the bubbles is the part of the toy that need to be attached before being able to make any bubbles but this is easily clicked into place inside the sword handle.

This does however have to be removed each time to playing is over as the handle does not screw down fully when the wand section is still in place. This is somewhat of a design flaw I feel as the bubble mixture is very sticky and you have to give it a good tug for this section to be removed! So for this reason I would suggest keeping the original plastic packaging for safe and clean storage. We didn't and now have to put this Bubble sword into a old Morrison's plastic carrier bag each time we put it away.

The look of the sword is indeed very good and very life like. It has a slight diamond shape to it and the wand bit mirrors this too. Because of this diamond shape when you go to make the bubbles the ones that are created are of a very large and impressive size and one dip into the extra strength bubble mixture makes so many bubbles it is unbelievable.

Jack loves to make the bubbles and then try to "chop" then with the sword itself although a lot of the time these don't pop as the bubble mixture they have supplied with this sword seems to be of very high standard.

We have used this Bubble Sword so much and it has kept Jack amused for ages. WE took it to the beach a few weeks back and we ended up having most of the children on the beach crowded round us trying to pop these mega bubbles. The bubble mixture that was supplied has all been used up now and I have tried to create my own with a bit of Fairy and water but I can't seem to make it as good as the one that it came with originally so goodness only knows what they used.

All in all, for a mere £1, this item was a great buy. It made a nice little gift for Jack and we have had tons of fun with it. I find it rather therapeutic to make the bubbles myself and would whole heartedly recommend this item to any one with children whether they are sword fans or not as the design of the Bubble wand makes it the best bubble maker around!